![Brooklyn Museum - The Fisherman - Gifford Reynolds Beal - overall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Fisherman_-_Gifford_Reynolds_Beal_-_overall.jpg)
Gifford Beal (January 24, 1879 – February 5, 1956) was an American painter, watercolorist, printmaker and muralist.
Early life
Born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, Gifford Beal was the youngest son in a family of six surviving children. His oldest brother
Reynolds Beal
Reynolds Beal (October 11, 1866 – December 18, 1951) was an American Impressionist and Modernist artist.
Early life and career
The elder brother of painter Gifford Beal, Reynolds was born in New York City. He and his brother Gifford spent thei ...
(1866–1951) also went on to become an accomplished painter as did his niece
Marjorie Acker (1894–1985), who married
Duncan Phillips, the founder of
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...
of
Washington D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
Beal knew from an early age that he wanted to paint. Between 1892 and 1901 he studied with
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...
(1849–1916) on weekends in New York City and during the summer at Chase’s
Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art
The Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art was summer school of art in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island that existed from 1891 to 1902. The director was William Merritt Chase. The school was one of the first and most popular ''plein air'' painting sch ...
on Long Island.
After graduating from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
in 1900 he studied at the
Art Students League of New York from 1901 to 1903 with
George Brandt Bridgman
George Brant Bridgman (November 5, 1864 – December 16, 1943) was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for so ...
(1864–1943) and
Frank Vincent DuMond
Frank Vincent DuMond (August 20, 1865 – February 6, 1951) was one of the most influential teacher-painters in 20th-century America. He was an illustrator and American Impressionist painter of portraits and landscapes, and a prominent teach ...
(1865–1951).
Career rise and recognition
In 1903 Beal won his first award (3rd prize) in a competitive exhibition, held at
Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...
, Massachusetts. Many prizes followed including those awarded by:
*
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
, New York, (Hallgarten Prize in 1910)
*
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
, Washington, DC, (3rd Medal and $1,000 Prize in 1914)
*
Panama Pacific Exposition
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cost ...
, San Francisco, (gold medal in 1915)
*
Art Institute of Chicago, International Watercolor Exhibition, (Blair Prize in 1930)
*
, Paris, (silver medal in 1937)
*
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
, New York, (Saltus Medal in 1948)
*
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
, New York, (Samuel Finley Breese Morse gold medal in 1954)
*
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
, New York, (Edward Palmer memorial Prize in 1955)
Beal was elected President of the
Art Students League of New York in 1916, again in 1918, and from 1920 he held this office continuously until 1930, becoming the longest serving President in its history. He taught at The Art Students’ League in 1931 and 1932.
In 1920 Beal held his first one-man exhibition at
Kraushaar Galleries in New York City. It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship he would have with the gallery. His work was exhibited continuously in the country.
Beal’s involvement with organizations for the advancement of the arts began in 1908 when he was elected to Associate by the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
; in 1914 he was elected to National Academician. In 1923 he became a member of the
National Institute of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
, and in 1943 he became a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
. He was a National Academician of the
American Watercolor Society
The American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866, is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States.
Qualifications
AWS judges the work of a painter before granting admission to the soc ...
from 1910 until 1955. He was also a member of the
Century Association, a New York City club founded in 1847 for artists and writers.
Beal also taught, and among his pupils was the painter
Ann Brockman
Ann Brockman (1896–1943) was an American painter.
An oil and watercolor painter, Brockman, who was known for her depictions of the landscape, the coastline, the figure, and animals, was born in Alameda, California in 1899. She studied with p ...
.
His work was part of the
painting event in the
art competition at the
1936 Summer Olympics.
Museums and government buildings
Beal’s work is held in an array of museum collections:
*
Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York City
*
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
, New York City
*
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
, Ohio
*
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...
, Washington D.C.
*
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 19 ...
, California
*
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
, Michigan
*
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
*
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art.
In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...
, Kansas City, Missouri
*
Florence Griswold Museum
The Florence Griswold Museum is an Art Museum at 96 Lyme Street in Old Lyme, Connecticut centered on the home of Florence Griswold (1850–1937), which was the center of the Old Lyme Art Colony, a main nexus of American Impressionism. The Museum i ...
,
Old Lyme, Connecticut
Old Lyme is a coastal town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The main street of the town, Lyme Street, is a historic district with several homes once owned by sea captains. Lyme Academy of Fine Arts is located in Old Lyme and the ...
*
New Britain Museum of American Art
The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art.
A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 200 ...
, New Britain, Connecticut
*
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...
, Richmond, Virginia
*
Hudson River Museum
The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at City Hall, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by th ...
, Yonkers, New York
*
Telfair Museums
Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...
, Georgia
*
Frye Art Museum
The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary e ...
s, Washington
*
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Amon may refer to:
Mythology
* Amun, an Ancient Egyptian deity, also known as Amon and Amon-Ra
* Aamon, a Goetic demon
People Momonym
* Amon of Judah ( 664– 640 BC), king of Judah
Given name
* Amon G. Carter (1879–1955), American pu ...
, Texas
*
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission.
Overview ...
, Arkansas
*
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...
, Virginia
*
McNay Art Museum
The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in the U.S. state of Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room ...
, Texas
*
Indianapolis Museum of Art
The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It ...
, Indiana
*
Canton Museum of Art, Ohio
*
Terra Foundation for American Art
The Terra Foundation for American Art is a privately operated nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of American art exhibitions, projects, academic research, and publications worldwide. Its goal is to promote a greater understanding and a ...
, Illinois
*
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
*
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, London, England
*
Everson Museum of Art Everson may refer to:
People with the surname
* Ben Everson (born 1987), English footballer
* Bill Everson (1906–1966), Welsh international rugby union player
* Cliff Everson, a New Zealand car designer and manufacturer
* Corinna Everson (born ...
, New York
*
Princeton University Art Museum
The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...
, New Jersey
*
Brooklyn Museum, New York
*
University of Michigan Museum of Art
The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...
, Michigan
*
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is an art museum located on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, within the university's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Founded in 1881 as the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, it ...
, Missouri
*
New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum ...
, New York
*
New Britain Museum of American Art
The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art.
A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 200 ...
, Connecticut
*
Maier Museum of Art
Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College features works by American artists from the 19th through 21st centuries. Randolph College (founded at Randolph-Macon Women's College) has been collecting American art since 1907 and the Maier Museum of Art n ...
, Lynchburg, Virginia
Beal was commissioned to
produce murals for several government buildings:
*
Allentown, Pennsylvania, Post Office, 1938
*
Main Interior Building
The Main Interior Building, officially known as the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building, located in Washington, D.C., is the headquarters of the United States Department of the Interior.
Located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood ...
, Washington D.C., 1941
*
Crestline, Ohio
Crestline is a village in Crawford and Richland Counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. Crestline's population was 4,630 at the 2010 census. It is the third largest municipality in Crawford County. The Crawford County portion of Crestline is part ...
Post Office, 1943
Gifford Beal Archive
The
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
in Washington D.C. holds an archive concerning Beal’s career as an artist containing correspondence, writings, works of art and printed material, much of it provided by Kraushaar Galleries, New York City. This collection has been fully digitized and is available online.
Style and inspiration
Beal’s subjects varied. He found inspiration not only in holiday spectacle and pageantry but also in the natural and everyday side of life. Some of his best known pictures are of holiday crowds, circus performers and hunting scenes. Yet, Beal enjoyed painting the Caribbean Islands and the landscape along the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
and in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
and
Rockport, Massachusetts, where he spent many summers. He depicted many scenes of the fishermen who worked there.
The French Impressionists' use of color and light to create form and atmosphere provided Beal's first influence. As his personal style developed, other elements of painting were emphasized: compositions were built on line and form thereby adding more solidity to the work. For example, he depended on balanced, rhythmic elements to depict motion in riding or fishing scenes. Beal believed in the power of spontaneity and would sometimes rework a "dead" area of color with line in order to revitalize it.
Beal's style underwent a simplification in the 1930s, his "austere" phase which coincided with American regionalism. As he grew older, his work became increasingly free and spirited, in part due to his exploration of different media, especially egg/oil tempera and brush and ink. These changes increased his sense of color and gesture, and he began to emphasize the abstract qualities of his subject. He did some of his boldest and brightest work during the last years of his life.
[Kraushaar Galleries, New York City]
Notes
References
*"Gifford Beal-An Appreciation," by
Barry Faulkner
Barry Faulkner (full name: Francis Barrett Faulkner; July 12, 1881 – October 27, 1966) was an American artist primarily known for his murals. During World War I, he and sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry organized artists for training as camouflage s ...
for the ''Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by Gifford Beal'' (New York: American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1956).
*"His Art Was Joyful: Death of Gifford Beal, 14 Years President of the League", Art Students League News 9, No. 3 (March 1956).
*"Chase the Artist," by Gifford Beal, ''Scribner's Magazine'' 61 (February 1917):258.
*"Gifford Beal: Perennially Youthful Painter of the Good Life," ''American Artist'' (October 1953):24.
*"Gifford Beal’s Versatility," Helen Comstock, ''International Studio'' (June 1923): 242.
*"A Collection in the Making”, Duncan Phillips 1926, E. Weyhe, New York
External links
A Finding aid to the Gifford Beal sketches, sketchbooks and papers, 1889-2001, bulk 1900-1954 in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian InstitutionCentury AssociationAmerican Watercolor SocietyFlorence Griswold MuseumGifford Beal exhibition catalogs(full pdf) from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beal, Gifford
1879 births
1956 deaths
19th-century American painters
American male painters
20th-century American painters
American muralists
Art Students League of New York alumni
Art Students League of New York faculty
Princeton University alumni
Painters from New York City
Section of Painting and Sculpture artists
Olympic competitors in art competitions
19th-century American male artists
20th-century American male artists
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters